Channel urged to take up end-user financing
Analyst hails end-user financing to ease market pressure
Resellers have received fresh calls to embrace end-user financing, following new figures that indicate the market is rapidly moving beyond its roots in equipment leasing.
With hardware leasing coming under growing pressure, software and services financing is set to swell from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the total IT leasing and financing market by 2010, according to market-watcher IDC.
Peter Austin, general manager at finance firm Siemens Financial Services, said: “Resellers need to see this as an opportunity to offer financing in a more innovative way, for instance on a pay-per-use basis, so the customer knows exactly what the cost is per person, per month.”
Eddie Pacey, director of credit at distributor Bell Microproducts, said the shift towards financing end-to-end solutions should act as a wake-up call for the channel.
“Putting aside the top 40 resellers, the proportion of VARs that actively sell financing services packages is less than 10 per cent,” he said. “Resellers are stuck in a rut. They don’t know how to sell financing and are missing out on a huge opportunity.”
IDC expects the total IT leasing and financing market to swell from $70bn in 2006 to $100bn in 2010, representing an annual growth rate of more than eight per cent.